montypythonfandomcom-20200214-history
Scott of the Antarctic
Scott of the Antarctic is a sketch that appears in "Scott of the Antarctic," the twenty-third episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus. Synopsis Chris Conger (Graham Chapman) is in Paignton, Devonshire, where for the next six months, it will be used as a filming location for Scott of the Antarctic. He interviews producer Gerry Schlick (Eric Idle). He asks how they're going to deal with the lack of snow and Schlick explains how they will use Wintrex, a new foam rubber which looks like snow on-screen, and lots of white paint for a "special finish". Schlick explains actor Kirk Vilb (Michael Palin) is the title role and the director is James McRettin (John Cleese). McRettin greets Conger (in a bad Scottish accent) enthusiastically and is incapable of answering his questions about filming. He eventually manages to explain that the first scene they will shoot is the scene outside the tent. The scene they will be shooting is where Scott returns to the tent to have brunch with the rest of the team. Actor Terence Lemming (Terry Jones) plays Oates, a cockney officer, and Seymour Fortescue plays Bowers, an Olympic pole-vaulter, both of whom are sitting bored outside a tent. It cuts to shots of the film and McRettin jumps on screen to say "great!" and cues the next character before running off screen. Vanilla Hoare (Carol Cleveland) as Miss Evans forgets her line and a stagehand runs on to tell her her line, "good morning, Captain Scott." to which she hesitatingly repeats. She tells the director she's not very happy with the line and would like to say "Hi, Scotty" instead. He enthusiastically runs on screen to tell her that's great, and runs off. Vanilla continues to get her line wrong and asks the director if she can say it in a more overexcited way. He agrees. Schlick goes on screen to tell McRettin that Kirk is too tall for Vanilla, and he concludes that Kirk should take his boxes off and Vanilla should get up out of the trench. Vanilla very much disagrees with that and demands she act in the trench. McRettin dismisses everyone for lunch. Later in the afternoon, Schlick explains they will be shooting the scene where Scott gets off the boat, sees a lion, fights it and kills it. Conger tells him there aren't any lions in the Antarctic and Schlick realises the problem and tells McRettin to lose the lion. Kirk asks why angrily and Schlick carefully explains that there are no lions in the Antarctic. Kirk demands he fight the lion because that's very important, and Schlick suggests he should fight a penguin. McRettin is so excited he falls over. Kirk tells him how the lion is in the contract and Schlick decides that they use include a lion somehow. Conger tells him lions are found in Africa, and Schlick decides to move the story to Africa: Scott of the Sahara. Category:Scott of the Antarctic sketches Category:Sketches Category:Twentieth Century Vole productions